Accelerate mainframe modernization with AWS Countdown Premium
Navigate migrating and modernizing mainframe systems with guidance from AWS experts
Ready to sign up for AWS Countdown Premium?
Receive proactive technical guidance from designated specialist engineers for all phases of your project, from planning to cutover to post-migration hypercare.
Access proven runbooks, templates, and technical workshops to plan your cloud environment and migration with operational readiness.
Identify and address risks with root cause analysis, real-time troubleshooting, and rapid issue resolution when it counts during migration and cutover.
Tailor engagement to your migration and modernization schedule through an easy monthly subscription with no term commitments.*
Mainframe modernization in the cloud can be a complex undertaking, and it’s critical to prepare for your migration project. To successfully transform your legacy systems, you must reconsider how applications and data are architected, developed, and deployed. These business-critical systems are often undocumented, setting the stage for a time consuming and error prone undertaking. Large volumes of data in proprietary formats, coupled with a lack of in-house cloud modernization expertise, can produce significant risks like data loss and application downtime.
AWS Countdown Premium, an AWS Support offering designed for migrations, modernizations, and critical events, applies AWS best practices to streamline and de-risk your mainframe modernization projects. A designated AWS Support engineer with domain expertise serves as a single point of contact, offering expert guidance throughout the modernization process.
To help ensure a smooth, efficient transition from legacy mainframe systems to modern cloud infrastructure, AWS Countdown Premium offers:
- A Designated Support engineer who works closely with your project team and delivery partners to provide expert guidance and assistance throughout the modernization process.
- Domain expertise in mainframe technologies and best practices aligned with the AWS Mainframe Modernization service and its patterns. Engineers use their knowledge and experience to provide valuable insights and recommendations.
- Tailored technical workshops designed to help your team develop the skills that they need to modernize your mainframe applications successfully.
- Migration planning and support assistance: Cloud Support engineers can help with migration planning, including data mapping, application conversion, and testing strategies.
- Support coverage: AWS Countdown Premium coordinates your schedules and provides support during critical cutovers to minimize downtime and facilitate a seamless transition.

“With help from a team of AWS experts, we successfully cut-over the production environment within 4 hours- which equates to 20% in time savings. AWS Countdown Premium accomplished the workload that would previously require 5 people to monitor in the war room. With AWS Countdown Premium, we feel more confident to execute such a huge event.”
William Hsieh, System Planning Sector Manager at Neweb Tech Co. LTD
Use Cases
Understand the mainframe environment
Leverage AWS Mainframe Modernization tools like Blu Insights to analyze your application code and understand interdependencies and other factors with the help of you designated AWS Countdown Premium engineer. This crucial output provides key data to scope and shape your migration.
Assess application characteristics
While mainframe applications are usually designed for high transaction throughput, low latency, and strong consistency, their monolithic architecture differs significantly from modern cloud best practices. AWS Countdown Premium engineers can help analyze your environment as you review each application’s characteristics and suitability to migrate to the cloud.
Data migration
Help ensure data integrity, consistency, and security are maintained throughout the migration process when you’re migrating from legacy databases such as IBM Db2 or Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM). When you migrate this data to a cloud-based system, you must make sure that data integrity, consistency, and security are maintained throughout the process. Your AWS Countdown Premium engineer guides the discussion to address data loss and corruptions risks.
Performance and scalability considerations
To make sure that applications can scale effectively in the cloud, you must make careful architectural changes, such as breaking down monolithic applications into microservices. This is a complex consideration in any modernization and migration journey. AWS Countdown Premium engineers, along with other AWS subject matter experts, can help you analyze these considerations and make decisions.
Dependency management
Understanding and managing mainframe application dependencies during migration is crucial to avoid disruptions. Custom workshop sessions and subject matter experts can help validate and guide dependency mapping of your legacy systems and tools to the new cloud environment.

“AWS Countdown helped us successfully complete our migration project on time by improving and validating our planning, contingency plans, and real-time troubleshooting."
Jonathan Hutchins, Director of Engineering at Legalzoom
Pricing
AWS Countdown Premium is available for a flat subscription fee of $10,000 US/month per project team. There is no long-term commitment and you can subscribe just for the time you need*.
How to get started
Want to speak to someone about your migration planning-related needs?
Ready to sign up for AWS Countdown Premium?
Learn more about AWS Countdown
*Requires an active AWS Support subscription to AWS Enterprise Support, Enterprise On-Ramp, or Business Support plan. AWS Countdown Premium is available for a fixed duration in monthly increments, with a minimum of one (1) month subscription. It is available in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese for workloads hosted in all available AWS Regions and the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, except the AWS China Regions. As a premium AWS Support Service, AWS Countdown Premium is supported by a global team of engineers. Please allow at least three weeks before an event to allow for sufficient planning time.